President Clinton on Global Warming and Climate Change
Remarks by the President on Global Warming and Climate Change
THE WHITE HOUSE, Office of the Press Secretary, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., October 22, 1997
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Mr. Murphy, Mr. Vice President, to all of you who are here. I thank especially the members of Congress who are here, the leaders of labor and business who are here, all the members of the administration, and especially the White House staff members that the Vice President mentioned and the Secretary of Energy, the Administrator of the EPA, and the others who have helped us to come to this moment. On the way in here we were met by the leaders of the National Geographic, and I complimented them on their recent two-part series on the Roman Empire. It’s a fascinating story of how the Empire rose, how it sustained itself for hundreds of years, why it fell, and speculations on what, if any, relevance it might have to the United States and, indeed, the West. And one of the gentlemen said, well, you know, we got a lot of interesting comments on that, including a letter referencing a statue we had of the bust of Emperor Vespasian. And one of our readers said, why in the world did you put a statue of Gene Hackman in a piece on the Roman Empire? (Laughter.) And I say that basically to say, in some senses, the more things change, the more they remain the same. (Laughter.) For what sustains any civilization, and now what will sustain all of our civilizations, is the constant effort at renewal, the ability to avoid denial and to proceed into the future in a way that is realistic and humane, but resolute.
Six years ago tomorrow, not long after I started running for President, I went back to my alma mater at Georgetown and began a series of three speeches outlining my vision for America in the 21st century — how we could keep the American Dream alive for all of our people, how we could maintain America’s leadership for peace and freedom and prosperity, and how we could come together across the lines that divide us as one America. And together, we’ve made a lot of progress in the last nearly five years now that the Vice President and I have been privileged to work at this task. At the threshold of a new century, our economy is thriving, our social fabric is mending, we’ve helped to lead the world toward greater peace and cooperation. I think this has happened, in no small measure, in part because we had a different philosophy about the role of government. Today, it is smaller and more focused and more oriented toward giving people the tools and the conditions they need to solve their own problems and toward working in partnership with our citizens. More important, I believe it’s happened because we made tough choices but not false choices. On the economy, we made the choice to balance the budget and to invest in our people and our future. On crime, we made the choice to be tough and smart about prevention and changing the conditions in which crime occurs. On welfare, we made the choice to require work, but also to support the children of people who have been on welfare. On families, we made the choice to help parents find more and better jobs and to have the necessary time and resources for their children. And on the environment, we made the choice to clean our air, water, and land, to improve our food supply, and to grow the economy. This kind of common sense approach, rooted in our most basic values and our enduring optimism about the capacity of free people to meet the challenges of every age must be brought to bear on the work that remains to pave the way for our people and for the world toward a new century and a new millennium.
Today we have a clear responsibility and a golden opportunity to conquer one of the most important challenges of the 21st century — the challenge of climate change — with an environmentally sound and economically strong strategy, to achieve meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases in the United States and throughout the industrialized and the developing world. It is a strategy that, if properly implemented, will create a wealth of new opportunities for entrepreneurs at home, uphold our leadership abroad, and harness the power of free markets to free our planet from an unacceptable risk; a strategy as consistent with our commitment to reject false choices. America can stand up for our national interest and stand up for the common interest of the international community. America can build on prosperity today and ensure a healthy planet for our children tomorrow. In so many ways the problem of climate change reflects the new realities of the new century. Many previous threats could be met within our own borders, but global warming requires an international solution. Many previous threats came from single enemies, but global warming derives from millions of sources. Many previous threats posed clear and present danger; global warming is far more subtle, warning us not with roaring tanks or burning rivers but with invisible gases, slow changes in our surroundings, increasingly severe climatic disruptions that, thank God, have not yet hit home for most Americans. But make no mistake, the problem is real. And if we do not change our course now, the consequences sooner or later will be destructive for America and for the world.
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